Re: Create TOAST table only if AM needs

Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> So I think this basically just doesn't work right now. I am
> sympathetic to Andres's position that we shouldn't go whacking the
> code around too much at this late date, and he's probably right that
> we're going to find lots of other problems with tableam as well and
> you have to draw the line someplace, but on the other hand given your
> experience and mine, it's probably pretty likely that anybody who
> tries to use tableam for anything is going to run into this problem,
> so maybe it's not crazy to think about a few last-minute changes.

It seems to me that the entire tableam project is still very much WIP,
and if anybody is able to do anything actually useful with a different
AM right at the moment, that's just mighty good fortune for them.
It's way too late to be making destabilizing changes in v12 in order
to move the frontier of what can be done in a new AM. I'm all for
the sorts of changes you're describing here --- but as v13 material.
We should be looking at v12 as something we're trying to get out
the door soon, with as few bugs as possible. "I can't do X in an
external AM" is not a bug, not for v12 anyway.

regards, tom lane